Christianity

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ESPN's epic on Nike losing Steph Curry: Yes, that 4:13 Bible reference is part of the story

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The Golden State Warriors won another NBA game last night, which is not newsworthy in and of itself since the team has been winning at a 90-plus percent rate this year.

However, this was a tough road game against the Utah Jazz and this win makes it highly likely the Warriors -- with a string of home games ahead -- will break one of the most famous records in sports, the 72-10 season by Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls in 1995-96.

Golden State is led, of course, by reigning MVP Stephen Curry, the baby-faced gunner whose long-range shooting is changing the balance of power in pro basketball. Clearly, The Stephen Curry Moment (click here for my take on the New York Times piece on that) is not over, as you can see by taking a quick trip to ESPN's "Nothin' But Steph" page.

As you would expect, Curry's commercial value is soaring along with his fame. This brings us to an amazing ESPN story -- "You won't believe how Nike lost Steph to Under Armour" -- that ran the other day about how, yes, the powerful, but lazy, gods of Nike basically shunned Curry as a client, with the young megastar jumping into the shoes of the under-dog Under Armour. This 5,000-plus word ESPN epic was so buzz-worthy that The Washington Post ran a story about the story.

GetReligion readers will not be surprised to learn there was a religion angle in this story, one consistent with Curry's strong and very public Christian faith.

GetReligion readers will also be shocked, shocked (not) to learn that this angle is nowhere to be found in the ESPN piece. This is rather hard to do, in light of the fact that Curry has -- since arriving at Under Armour -- been allowed to use "Charged by Belief" as the motto for his brand. Another hint: You will find a "4:13" reference on the Curry shoes, but not in the ESPN feature. Hold that thought.

So how did Nike lose Curry as a client?


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Deseret News covers heaven: But how many voices does this story need to include?

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Anyone who has spent some time on the religion beat knows that religious organizations like to hold conferences about big, complex, interesting topics.

Covering one of these things is a great way to spend a day. Most of the time when you are sent to one, you end up hearing all kinds of articulate people talking about all kinds of interesting angles on what is usually a very interesting subject (at least it's interesting to members of the flock that staged the conference).

But there are challenges. For starters, what do you do if there are two really interesting presentations going on at the same time? Also, you can end up with dozens of interesting points of view competing for the lede of your story. How do you pick a winner? How does one decide which voice is the most newsworthy?

In the end, reading competing news accounts of the same conference tells you just as much about the reporters involved in the coverage as it does the content of the actual event.

If you want to see a perfect example of this syndrome, check out this recent story from The Deseret News about a conference focusing on a subject that is certainly interesting and potentially even newsworthy. But the topic is so massive, and the event drew so many interesting experts, that the result is kind of -- well, I'll let you be the judge of that.

How big is the subject? Let's start with the lede:

PROVO -- What lies beyond the grave?


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Mirror image question: No American coverage of the murder of Muslim merchant in Glasgow?

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It's time, once again, to look at the mirror image of a story that is in the news. We are, of course, in the final days of Holy Week for Western churches.

Let's change the context and flip the key details to create our mirror-image case. Let's say that, somewhere in Europe, the following tragedy took place. It is days before Ramadan and a Christian merchant, extending a hand of fellowship during these tense times, posted a message extending good will and affection for his Muslim neighbors as they entered a holy season.

Hours later, in our hypothetical story, one or two Christians enter the man's shop and brutally murder him, stabbing him repeatedly and then stamping on his head.

Police quickly make it clear that this was a "religiously prejudiced" attack.

Yes, this would be a major story in Europe. But do you think it would draw significant coverage from elite newsrooms on this side of the pond? Or would it be one of those stories that is ignored, other than in alternative media sources that come with political labels attached?

Now, what is the actual story? Let's turn to the BBC, which is hardly a minor news source:

A 32-year-old man has been arrested after a Glasgow shopkeeper was killed in what Police Scotland are treating as a "religiously prejudiced" attack.
Asad Shah, 40, was found seriously injured in Minard Road, Shawlands, at about 21:05 GMT on Thursday. He died in hospital. The incident happened hours after he apparently posted social media messages wishing his customers a happy Easter.
Police said both Mr Shah and the arrested man were Muslims.
A post on Thursday from an account that appears to be Mr Shah's said: "Good Friday and very happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation x!" ...


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Classic M.Z. Hemingway: Why do journalists settle for lite (or mangled) Easter news?

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There she goes, there she goes again.

What we have here is another classic example of M.Z. "GetReligionista emeritus" Hemingway spotting another cultural hook that is big enough, and hot enough, to cover as a valid religion-news trend.

To state the question bluntly: Has Easter evolved into the new Xmas?

Saints preserve us.

Please note that Hemingway -- writing at The Federalist of course -- is not predicting something along the lines of the dreadful church-state "War on Christmas" stories that, tragically, have become a permanent part of America's cable-TV and click-bait online news marketplace.

No, she is asking a more serious question, one captured in the double-decker headline on her piece:

The Easter Bunny’s War On Easter Is Going Too Far
If you celebrate Easter with fake bunny ears, you're set. But what if you celebrate Jesus' resurrection?

Journalists note: The Easter Bunny is not the secular state. It's the bright, shiny world of pop commerce, which is way more comfortable with candy than with theology.


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Nagging legal question: Will polygamy become the next same-sex marriage?

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Nagging legal question: Will polygamy become the next same-sex marriage?

Future-gazingjournalists take note: The question above is the lede of an article in the April edition of First Things magazine.

Author John Witte Jr. devoutly hopes the answer is no.

Witte, the noted director of Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion, presents that viewpoint at length in “The Western Case for Monogamy over Polygamy” (Cambridge University Press). The issue arises due to the gradual legal toleration of adultery and non-marital partnering that culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell opinion last June that extended such  liberty to same-sex marriage.

The high court’s wording leaves open whether polygamy laws still make sense. This is “becoming the newest front in the culture wars,” Witte writes, and legalization may seem “inevitable” after Obergefell. We've had federal district court rulings supporting religious polygamists that Utah is appealing at the 10th Circuit. The case involves a family from the “Sister Wives” cable TV show that has helped make polygamous families seem less offensive and more mainstream-ish.

Witte writes that aversion to homosexual partners has been based historically on religious teaching, but rejection of polygamy is quite different. Polygamy occurred in the Old Testament (and usually demonstrated resulting ills and family strife). But it was opposed by the non-biblical culture of classical Greece, and in modern times by Enlightenment liberals on wholly secular grounds. (For more on biblical and Mormon history, see this piece by the Religion Guy.)

Witte observes that multiple mates are the pattern among “more than 95 percent of all higher primates,” and yet human beings “have learned by natural inclination and hard experience that monogamy best accords with human needs.”


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Film at 11? Is it news that ISIS might crucify kidnapped Salesian priest on Good Friday?

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One of the hardest parts of being a reporter, on any beat, is trying to figure out what to do while you are waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Let's say that a major event has taken place and that you have written that story. However, you just know that there will be other developments. Do you try to get ahead of it and write an advance story about what MIGHT happen, about the developments that you know the experts are already anticipating, if not investigating? Then again, if lots of scribes do that, it's possible that they will influence the story that they're covering.

This happens all the time in political coverage. Right now, major newsrooms are cranking out stories based on the whole "what will the candidates do next in an attempt to stop Donald Trump, etc., etc." line of thought. It's speculation mixed with blue-sky planning.

As you would imagine, I am thinking about a specific story now looming in the background, as the churches of the West move through Holy Week toward the bright liturgical grief of Good Friday. I am referring to that note that I added the other day, at the end of a post with this headline: "Did gunmen in Yemen kill the four Missionaries of Charity for any particular reason?"

The hook for the post was a comment by Pope Francis in which he wondered why journalists around the world were offering so little coverage of the deaths of these four nuns. I added:

So what's the bottom line at this point, in terms of the pope's lament about the news coverage? Have we reached the point where attacks of this kind are now normal and, well, not that big a deal? Did these news reports really need to be clear about who lived and who died in this case? Did the faith element -- the "martyr" detail -- matter in the original coverage of these killings or did it only become valid when the pope said so?
Just asking. And does anyone else fear that we may soon see the missing priest in an Islamic State video?


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Pew Research survey on global religious gender gap deserves far more coverage

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Years ago while living in northern Virginia, I was a mentor to a Muslim family that had been forced out of Iraqi Kurdistan. One of the things I noticed about them is they were rarely at the mosque. The women (and there were four daughters in this family) never went, except when they needed a marriage contract signed. The father occasionally attended.

Now, I’ve sat in the women’s sections of certain mosques and it’s not a great experience. You can’t see or hear a thing, it’s unbelievably crowded and there are small children racing around. No wonder my Kurdish female friends never went. Compare that to most churches I’ve visited where the majority of worshipers were women.

There's a story there.

So I was not surprised to read about this gender difference in a Religion News Service piece chronicling Pew survey data on the phenomenon. Here’s what it said:

(RNS) Fewer men than women show up in U.S. churches, and women are markedly more likely to pray and to hold up religion as important.
But in Muslim nations, it’s the women who are missing in action at the mosque -- and yet they’re on par with men in upholding almost all the Muslim pillars of faith.
Those are among the top findings in a new Pew Research study of the gender gap in religion, drawn from data in 192 nations, released Tuesday (March 22).
The overall conclusion: Women, particularly Christian, are generally more religious than men worldwide. An estimated 83 percent of women around the world identify with a faith group, compared with 80 percent of men, according to the report.

Now that 3.5 percent percentage point gap may not seem like much, but it means that 97 million more women than men worldwide identify with a faith group.


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Holy Week question: What do we know about the Jewish leader who buried Jesus?

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Holy Week question: What do we know about the Jewish leader who buried Jesus?

JACK’S QUESTION:

What do we know about Joseph of Arimathea? Have scholars learned anything more about him than what is said in the Gospels?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The man who buried Jesus is a timely topic for Christians’ Holy Week. The quick response is that lots of stuff about Joseph of Arimathea is floating around out there. But much of it was written long centuries after the fact and is best regarded as folklore that tells us about British national pride rather than the actual man and his history.

The four New Testament Gospels are by far the best available sources and, scholars tells us, the earliest ones, produced in their current form some three to six decades after Jesus’ crucifixion. All four Gospels have information about Joseph, a rare distinction for a minor figure, albeit one who participated in a history-changing event. (References: Matthew 27:57-60, Mark 15:43-46, Luke 23:50-53, John 19:38-42.)

The Gospels’ narratives are broadly similar, but with intriguing differences of the sort that keep exegetes up at night. We’re told Joseph was “rich” and “respected,” asked Rome’s colonial ruler Pilate for custody of Jesus’ corpse, provided his own unused tomb hewn out of rock, personally conducted the burial procedures, and rolled the famous stone across the entrance to seal the gravesite. The burial was witnessed by two women, so the Gospels teach they were not mistaken that it was Jesus’ tomb  later found empty.

Mark calls Joseph a member of the “council,” which could refer to Jerusalem’s municipal government. But Luke clarifies that he belonged to the Sanhedrin that asked Pilate to execute Jesus, and says Joseph “had not consented to their purpose and deed.” Thus Mark’s statement that “all” of the Sanhedrin wanted execution can be seen as hyperbole to indicate lopsided rather than 100 percent support. John alone adds that fellow Sanhedrin member Nicodemus, who had defended Jesus during a prior dispute (John 7:50-52), joined Joseph in the burial.

Side comment: This important detail that the Sanhedrin was split helps counter anti-Semitic distortions. And divided opinion did not characterize only the Jewish rulers.


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Entangled in doctrine? Will journalists even mention a key fact in HHS mandate cases?

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Once again, it's time for a landmark event linked to America's ongoing conflicts between the First Amendment and the Sexual Revolution. In terms of journalism, the key question is whether elite news organizations will actually include in their coverage one of the key facts in these arguments.

So now we await the coverage of today's U.S. Supreme Court discussions related to seven cases in which religious schools and ministries have opposed Obamacare. These religious organizations claim the government is forcing them to cooperate in efforts to undercut doctrines that help define their organizations and their work.

As you read the coverage, look for this fact: Will the stories mention whether or not these organizations ask employees and students to sign doctrinal, lifestyle covenants in order to join these voluntary associations? In a previous post on this issue I noted that, when viewed from the perspective of these religious groups (and their viewpoint is a crucial element in this debate), the question can be stated like this:

... Can religiously affiliated schools, hospitals, charities and other nonprofit ministries be forced by the government into cooperating with acts that violate the doctrines that define their work and the traditions of their faith communities? Should the government actively back the efforts of employees (and other members of these voluntary associations, such as students) to break the contracts and doctrinal covenants that they chose to sign? Again, do Christian colleges have to cooperate in helping their own students and employees violate the covenants that they signed in order to join these faith-based communities? Do the Little Sisters of the Poor need to help their own employees violate the teachings of the Catholic Church?
Flip things around: Try to imagine the government forcing an Episcopal seminary to fund, oh, reparative therapy sessions for a gay student or employee who wanted to modify his sexual behaviors? Why force the seminary to violate its own doctrines?

A crucial church-state term here is "entanglement."


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